A Message from City Manager Dana McDaniel

When someone asks me to describe Dublin in a handful of words, there are many adjectives that immediately come to mind – vibrant, innovative and engaged to name a few. But when thinking about the best way to describe our city over the past year, I think smarter might be most appropriate. Add the word together, and you have a perfect description of Dublin in 2016.

Becoming smarter together does not happen by accident. It takes ideas, conversation, relationships, resources and effort. It takes the vision and leadership of City Council. It takes a government and its residents working together. We saw all of that come together in a variety of ways to make us proud in 2016. We had fantastic progress on several major projects, including the 270/33 interCHANGE, the Riverside Drive roundabout, the initial phases of the Bridge Street District, the Ohio University Dublin campus master plan, and, of course, the US 33 Smart Mobility Corridor.

We continued strategic planning with our legacy office parks and began planning for improvements to the Sawmill Road corridor. We also invested in the maintenance of existing infrastructure and facilities that provide signiﬁcant value to our neighborhoods.

Revenues continued to be positive and better than projected, and our public services to the community have remained second to none. We are committed to continuing to maintain the absolute best customer service in 2017.

This past year was also a time for the City’s leadership to become even more active in community engagement. We launched a series of neighborhood visits called Talks in the Park in which our Police Chief and Parks and Recreation Director joined me in meeting with residents in a diff erent park each month. We learned a lot from you during these visits, and I hope they were just as beneficial to you. I look forward to more of these opportunities for conversation in 2017.

Last, but certainly not least, 2016 brought a continued emphasis on international engagement. We continued to pursue our vision of becoming a global city of choice by engaging with our partners around the world, while continuing to promote the diverse cultures within our community.

The bottom line is that we want to continue to create an environment in which both our residents and businesses can thrive. It takes all of us working together to make that happen. We truly are and will continue to be smarter together.